“Who’s Vi?”Marcus looked tired, even though he smelled as if the cold was getting better.
“My aunt.”I shrugged.“She’s nice.”
“She’s not having dinner with us while our fucking mate is sick, Ell.Are you fucking kidding me?”Dom walked to the kitchen and went about making our mate some tea.
Marcus looked at me with his tired eyes.“She’s a werewolf as well, then?”
“She’s mean is what she is.”Dom picked out one of Linc’s mugs, one of the ones he’d moved across country with him.They’d become Dom’s favorites.
I heard the door of Linc’s office open, and then he came down to join us.He looked mad—a rare thing.Marcus moved into a sitting position, and I sat next to him, so close that our bodies touched.He accepted the proximity without issue, and I saw the minute softening in Linc’s expression when he took that in.
Linc looked away briefly as he dropped into one of the armchairs.“I have my lawyers on it still, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do, legally.He didn’t post it anywhere that I could find, although I have my A-Team looking.He didn’t send it to any of your work contacts either, from what I can tell.I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
The last bit came out pained, and I sympathized.
Marcus’s smell was full of confusion and unease.He stayed quiet, but he perked up when Dom put a large mug of tea in his hands and sat on Marcus’s other side.
“I still volunteer to bite his dick off.”Dom meant that.
Marcus looked at Dom, then sipped some of the tea.“Thank you, but I think the tea’ll do.What’s your A-Team?”He looked at Linc.
“Tech-savvy hacker types who specialize in finding things anywhere on the web or the dark web.And a few other unique skills we don’t need to talk about right now.”
Marcus nodded and looked at the steaming mug in his hands.“He sent it to my family too, didn’t he?”
Linc hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded.“It seems like it.You’ve had no calls though.Do you want to give them a call yourself?”
Marcus snorted and his knuckles went white around the mug.“Why do you think Steven was my emergency contact?My parents aren’t in my life anymore.When I pushed back on their demands and told them my feelings matter, actually, theirs were so hurt they decided they didn’t have a son anymore.I mean, that’s what they said, but it was some manipulative gaslighting shit.I’m not talking to them anymore.”
Linc gasped.My and Dom’s arms went around Marcus, sheltering our mate between us.It came as naturally as if we’d done this a million times before.No one said anything.
In the silence, the sound of a car crunching over the gravel and approaching the house was impossible to miss.
I sighed.“That’ll be Vi.”
Linc looked confused.“What’s Vi doing here?”
I fumbled with my collar.“There was a guy at the ER yesterday.He said he was bitten by a rabid wolf, but then he vanished before he could get tested and treated for rabies.I called Vi to let her know, and she said none of the pack bit a human.She asked why I wasn’t at work yesterday, and one thing led to another, which led to me telling her about Marcus.”
Vi’s car door opened and closed, and her light footfalls came closer.Dom growled.
“Well, fuck.”Linc stood and faced the door.
11
Werewolves were real, and my life was ruined.But at least I had a nice cup of oolong and was the juicy center of a hot guy sandwich.Look on the bright side and all that.
Another bright side was that I had run out of fucks to give about how the woman who walked into the wolves’ house saw my juicy sandwich center ass on the couch in my pajamas, wedged between Dom and Ellis.
She had sharp blue eyes just like Ellis, and I saw the family resemblance in the cheekbones too.Her look around the room was the cataloging kind, like a health inspector in a fast-food joint looking for rat poop.I very much tried not to feel like rodent droppings, doubly grateful now for my bath earlier.
“Ellie,” she said, taking another step forward.I wasn’t sure what invisible boundary she had crossed, but all of a sudden Dom was growling louder than before, and Lincoln had stepped forward to block her.Or rather, he stepped in front ofme.To block her from getting tome.What the fuck?
“Is she going to eat me?”I’d learned to do quick mental edits before I spoke, but I was so very much out of fucks to give.
Dom snorted.“She can try.”
The woman tsked.“Back down, boys.I’m not going to eat your human.I just wanted to get a good look at him.”
